The characteristics that are universally attractive include,
but are not limited to, physical health, clear skin, and symmetry (right
& left side of the body having the same proportions). One additional
universal feature of sexual attraction is an aversion towards close genetic
relatives. See the notes to the beauty chapter (pp 153-172) for detailed
references on beauty universals.

4

Numerous
studies have demonstrated that more symmetrical people are considered
more attractive by others. See, for example: Perrett, D.I., D. Burt,
D.M., I.S. Penton-Voak, K.J. Lee, D.A. Rowland, and R. Edwards. 1999.
"Symmetry and human facial attractiveness." Evolution
and Human Behavior 20:295-307. They found that, for males and
females, when computer images were manipulated to increase the symmetry
of the fac, the ratings of attractiveness also increased.

A related
study, looking at men, also found that physical attractiveness was
significantly correlated with symmetry. Interestingly, they also found
that it wasn't even necessary to measure the symmetry of the man's
face. In other words, men with asymmetrical fingers, feet, wrists,
and elbows, have less attractive faces than men in whom these structures
are more symmetrical. The data are in: Gangestad, S.W., R. Thornhill
and R.A. Yeo. 1994. "Facial attractiveness, developmental stability,
and fluctuating asymmetry." Ethology and Sociobiology
15:73-85.

And finally,
Mealey et al. did an interesting study of twins, in which symmetry
and attractiveness were measured in each. As would have been predicted
by the studies cited above, the more symmetrical of the twins were
rated as significantly more attractive than their less symmetrical
co-twin. The study is in: Mealey L., R. Bridgstock, and G.C. Townsend.
1999. "Symmetry and perceived facial attractiveness: A monozygotic
co-twin comparison." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
76:151-158.

4

Evidence
that we not only find symmetrical people more attractive but that we also
prefer them as sexual partners is presented in: Thornhill, R. and S.W.
Gangestad. 1994. "Human fluctuating asymmetry and sexual behavior."
Physiological Science 5:297-302. This study of male college students
found that more symmetrical men had had more lovers over the course of
their lifetime and that they had lost their virginity at an earlier age.

4

It's
clear where all of the studies above are pointing and, indeed, one study
showed it to be true that women whose partners were more symmetrical reported
more orgasms during sex than did women with less symmetrical partners.
The study is: Thornhill, R., S.W. Gangestad, and R. Comer. 1995. "Human
female orgasm and mate fluctuating asymmetry." Animal Behavior
50:1601-1615.

4

An important
review that covered an impressively broad array of animal species (including
both vertebrates and invertebrates), documented a consistent relationship
between symmetry and nearly every important component of fitness, including:
parasitism, fecundity, growth rate, survival, and metabolic efficiency.
The study is Thornhill, R. and A.P. Moller. 1997. "Developmental
stability, disease, and medicine." Biological Reviews of the
Cambridge Philosophical Society 72:497-548.

In the
studies cited above, it's not clear whether the causal link between
parasites and symmetry is one way or two. In and interesting study in
house flies, individuals that were more asymmetric proved to be susceptible
to infection when exposed to a fungus. The study is in: Moller, A.P.
1995. "Sexual selection, viability selection and developmental
stability in the domestic fly, Musca domestica." Evolution 50:746-752.

For a recent summary of the research on fertility see Ellison,
Peter T. 2001. On Fertile Ground. Harvard University Press.

7

An excellent
study demonstrating the dramatic decrease in fertility that results
from moderate weight loss is: Lager C. and P.T. Ellison. 1990. "Effect
of moderate weight loss on ovarian function assessed by salivary progesterone
measurements." American Journal of Human Biology 2:303-12.
In this study, the same subjects were followed over multiple months
and it turned out that women who were not dieting ovulated during every
one of their cycles, while dieters, on the other hand, (who were losing
weight at a rate of about four pounds per month) failed to ovulate in
about 40% of their cycles.

7

An
interesting and carefully-controlled study of the effects of moderate
exercise on fertility showed that women running about 12 miles per week
had significantly reduced progesterone levels that indicated in one-third
of their cycles that no ovulation occurred. This study is: Ellison P.T.
and C. Lager. 1986. "Moderate recreational running is associated
with lowered salivary progesterone profiles in women." American
Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 154:1000-1003.

8

Excellent monographs exist for a number of non-industrialized cultures.
Included among those referenced throughout Mean Genes are:

The !Kung San of the Khalahari -- See Shostak, Margorie. 1981. Nisa,
the life and words of a !Kung woman. Harvard University Press.
and Lee, Richard. 1993, 2nd ed. The Dobe Ju/'hoansi. Harcourt
Brace.
The Ache of South America -- See Hill, Kim and Magdelena Hurtado.
1996. Ache Life History: The Ecology and Demography of a Foraging
People. Aline De Gruyter.
The Sambia of Papua New Guinea -- See Herdt, Gilbert. 1987. The
Sambia. Ritual and Gender in New Guinea. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
The Yanomamo of South America -- Chagnon, Napoleon. 1992. Yanomamo,
4th edition. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

8

Darwin's classic is still a great read, Darwin,
Charles. 1859. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,
or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. John
Murray.

8

Prominent opponents to the use of genetic evolution and biology for
understanding human behavior include Stephen J. Gould and Richard Lewontin.
See their classic article: Gould, S. J. and R.C. Lewontin. 1979. "The
Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Program: A Critique of the
Adaptationist Programme." Proceedings of the Royal Society of
London 205: 581-588.

A
study of people's saving desires and behavior is, Bernheim, Douglass.
April 1995. "Do Households Appreciate Their Financial Vulnerabilities?"
An Analysis of Actions, Perceptions, and Public Policy, in Tax Policy
and Economic Growth, American Council for Capital Formation, Center for
Policy Research.

15

U.S. Savings
rate (data from Department of Commerce, Graph from Wall Street Journal)

See page
240, for instance: "Red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudonicus), common
inhabitants of coniferous forests throughout much of North America, and
the closely related Douglas squirrel (T. douglasii) of the Pacific
Northwest are among the most thoroughly studied of food-hoarding mammals
. . . Red squirrels begin collecting and storing cones in late July or
early August and continue for 4-8 weeks … Clarke (1939) estimated that
red squirrels can collect and store about 1,000 red pine (Pinus resinosa)
cones in a day, but they clip and store the large cones of limber pine
(P. flexilis) at rates of only about twenty-nine to thirty-two
cones per day (Benkman, Balda, and Smith 1984). … Middens usually contain
2-4 bushels (70-141) of cones, but instances of 8-15 bushels (282-528
l) being taken by cone collectors have been reported (Cox 1911; Korstian
and Baker 1925; Yeager 1937; Baldwin 1942). M.C. Smith (1968) estimated
that red squirrels stored between 12,000 and 16,000 white spruce (Picea
glauca) cones in a 6-week harvest period in interior Alaska. Gurnell
(1984) found a mean of 2,187 lodgepole pine cones in nine middens (range
= 280-4,360 cones per midden). . ."

"Besides
cones, red squirrels store various nuts, seeds, fruits, and some meat.
Nuts stored include walnuts, hickory nuts (Layne 1954), chestnuts (Audobon
and Bachman 1846, cited by Hatt 1929), beechnuts (Klugh 1927), and hazelnuts
(Mailliard 1931). … Burton (1930) attributed to red squirrels accumulations
of boxelder (Acer negundo) samaras found at the bases of trees,
in hollow trunks, and in the crotches of tree branches. One of these caches
contained more than a bushel (35 l) of seeds."

17

The original
story of the grasshopper and ant was written by Aesop. It reads,

In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping
and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along
with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.

"Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead
of toiling and moiling in that way?"

"I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant,
"and recommend you to do the same."

"Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; we have
got plenty of food at present." But the Ant went on its way and
continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food
and found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing
every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer.
Then the Grasshopper knew:

It is best to prepare for the days of necessity.

17

!Kung San
life in the 1960's is described in, Lee, Richard. 1993, 2nd ed. The
Dobe Ju/'hoansi. Harcourt Brace.

"Following
the outbreak of the Great Depression, poverty among the elderly grew dramatically.
The best estimates are that in 1934 over half of the elderly in America
lacked sufficient income to be self-supporting. Despite this, state welfare
pensions for the elderly were practically non-existent before 1930. A
spurt of pension legislation was passed in the years immediately prior
to passage of the Social Security Act, so that 30 states had some form
of old-age pension program by 1935. However, these programs were generally
inadequate and ineffective. Only about 3% of the elderly were actually
receiving benefits under these states plans, and the average benefit amount
was about 65 cents a day."

23

Retirees
in the U.S. have very little in the way of liquid financial assets, Poterba,
James M. 1996. Personal Saving Behavior and Retirement Income Modeling:
A research Assessment. in Eric A. Hanushek and Nancy L. Maritato,
eds., Assessing Knowledge of Retirement Behavior: Commission on
Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (CBSSE).

Median Financial assets for U.S Household head age 55-64
-------------------------------------------------------
$8,300 Total financial assets
$36,000 Home equity
$8,200 Other property

"The
human inclination to fear and avoid threatening aspects of nature has
been particularly associated with reptiles such as snakes and arthropods
such as spiders and various biting and stinging invertebrates... This
potential has been described by Ulrich et al. in a review of the scientific
literature (1991:206): 'Conditioning studies have shown that nature settings
containing snakes or spiders can elicit pronounced autonomic responses...
even when presented subliminally.' Schneirla (1965) further notes that
the occurrence of 'ugly, slimy, erratic' moving animals, such as certain
snakes and invertebrates, provokes withdrawal responses among vertebrate
neonates in the absence of overt or obvious threat." --p. 57

"Ohman
and Dimberg, using classical conditioning paradigms, were able to elicit
and maintain fear responses to spiders, snakes, and hostile human faces
but not to "neutral" stimuli such as flowers or to such modern
hazards as guns." -- p. 167

26

Lapland
and the use of cheese in, Einzig, Paul. 1966. Primitive money in its
ethnological, historical, and economic aspects. 2nd ed. Pergamon Press.
"In
Lapland, cheese served as a currency up to the 19th century." -- p. 310

26

The
origins of money, Quiggin, Alison. 1907. A Survey of Primitive Money;
The Beginning of Currency. Methuen.

In Norway,
"butter was used for valuation in many commercial documents, the unit
being a basket. Rents were often payable wholly or partly in butter. In
1309, ten baskets of butter bought a horse worth three cows." -- p. 275

29

Japan's problems
with oversaving were described in The Wall Street Journal on May
17, 2000

Japan is
the first major developed country since World War II to confront the 'paradox
of thrift,' the condition John Maynard Keynes worried about, where bad
times lead individuals to save more, suppressing overall demand and making
a country even worse off.

So the Japanese
government nudges its citizens to live it up. The Finance Ministry, concerned
that families would simply tuck away a recent $500-a-household income-tax
cut, launched a media blitz to advise people on how to spend the money.

A cartoon
in a magazine ad shows a father excitedly reading about the cuts in the
newspaper, inspiring his two young kids to dream of cake and candy and
his blushing wife to ask for a blouse. A poster plastered in subway stations
pictures an aerial shot of a crammed neighborhood with words emanating
from the homes. "I'll drink a toast with fine wine," says one. "I'll finally
buy those golf clubs," says another. One implores: "Let's spend it all
at once!"

People
plan to be "good" (e.g. with video selections), but given the
chance are "bad". Read, D., G. Loewenstein and S. Kalyanaraman.
1999. "Mixing virtue and vice: The combined effects of hyperbolic discounting
and diversification." Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
12: 257-73.

A
spectacular article on Organutans in the wild is, Knott, Cheryl. 1998. "Orangutans
in the Wild." National Geographic, August 194(2): 30-57. Photographs
in this piece are taken by Tim Laman.

36

An important
article laying out the role of ancestral environments in the shaping of
our genetic human nature is, Tooby, John and Leda Cosmides. 1990. "The
Past Explains the Present: Emotional Adaptations and the Structure of
Ancestral Environments." Ethology & Sociobiology, 11:
375-424.

"The
fattening room is like paradise. Obesity is seen as something very special
and sought after in this culture and an Iriabo works hard to achieve it."
This is from the detailed description of the fat rooms of Nigeria in: Brink,
P.J. (1989). The fattening room among the Annang of Nigeria. Medical
Anthropology 12:131-143. Following the ritual, coming-of-age ceremony
that takes place several years after reaching puberty, the young women--called
Iriabos during the ceremony--enter the fattening room. Although some of
the girls marry immediately after completing the ceremony, this is not always
the case.

37

The
importance to reproduction of having reserves of energy is discussed in:
Hrdy, S.B. 1999. Mother Nature. Pantheon. See for instance, page 125: "with
sufficient fat on board, some fat cells start to secrete the hormone leptin,
which triggers endocrinological transformations leading to menarche. Some
time after that, a young woman becomes fertile. By then she will have laid
down sufficient fat to help carry her through pregnancy and lactation...
this is termed 'reproductive fat'."

37

For
an excellent and comprehensive account of the extent of starvation and malnutrition
in the world, see the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
page at: http://www.fao.org/FOCUS/E/SOFI/home-e.htm.

38

For
an overview of energy expenditure in daily life among modern day hunter-gatherers,
see Cashdan, Elizabeth. 1989. "Hunters and Gatherers: Economic Behavior
in Bands." in S. Plattner, ed., Economic Anthropology. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.

38

Obesity is
a clinical term that is revised from time to time. According to the Centers
for Disease Control, an individual is "overweight" if they have
a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than or equal to 25. This means that 54.6
% of Americans are overweight. A BMI greater than or equal to 30 is considered
obese. This means that 22.6 % of the population are obese.

A
typical American gains about 20 pounds between the ages of 25 and 55. An
outstanding summary of what scientists know about fat and obesity, including
the relationship between weight gain and age, can be found in the Scientific
American article: Gibbs, W.W. 1996. "Gaining on fat." Scientific
American August 1996. http://www.sciam.com/0896issue/0896gibbs.html.
This article also gives a nice summary of data bearing on the set-point
theory.

Biosphere
2 Center is a non-profit affiliate of Columbia University. For a detailed
description and photos, see: http://www.bio2.edu/

40

Because
they couldn't grow as much food as they projected they would be able to,
the Biodomers were forced onto a calorie-restricted dietary regime of about
1,800 calories per person per day.

40

Botanist
Linda Leigh said personality differences and crop failures made life difficult
for the Biodomers: "Food distribution became a very tense issue. .
. I think that made us all a little cranky, always being hungry. . . If
we ever all start talking to each other, that would be a major accomplishment."
Associated Press. 1996. "Life inside Biosphere 2: food fights and bugs."
July 29th 1996.

Barbara
Hansen, the director of the Obesity Research Center at the University of
Maryland School of Medicine, conducted the study of weight loss and gain
among monkeys. She describes the study in which she forced monkeys to lose
weight and stay on a diet for two years and then, when she took them off
of the diet they regained their weight, in the excellent book: Vogel, S.
1999. The Skinny on Fat. W.H. Freeman and Company. (See page 110).

41

For
a current discussion of the set point theory of human weight, see the special
issue of Nature devoted to Obesity -- 6 April 2000. Obesity Special Issue.
Nature 404.

The
role of neuropeptide Y in the control of appetite is described in Jhanwar-Uniyal,
M., B. Beck, Y.S. Jhanwar, C. Burlet, and S.F. Leibowitz. 1993. "Neuropeptide
Y projection from arcuate nucleus to parvocellular division of paraventricular
nucleus: specific relation to the ingestion of carbohydrate." Brain
Research 631:97-106. They found that a strong, positive correlation
was found between daily carbohydrate intake and hypothalamic NPY levels.

42

As
they get hungrier and hungrier, lab animals do indeed lose their sex drive.
Data are from: Stone, C. P. and L. Ferguson. 1938. "Preferential responses
of male albino rats to food and to receptive females." Journal of
Comparative Psychology 26:237-255.

43

Numerous
studies of the placebo effect have been noted over the year. The Xenical
study cited is from Aronne, L.S. 1998. "Modern medical management if
obesity: the role of pharmaceutical intervention." Journal of the
American Dietetic Association 98:23-26. "In a one-year placebo-controlled
study, 55% of patients getting Xenical lost more than 5% of their body weight,
and 25% lost more than 10% of their body weight (compared with 33% and 15%
in the placebo group)."

The Socrates
quote comes from Plato's Apology of Socrates. On trial for his
life, Socrates says (as written by Plato),

"I
have no wisdom, small or great. What then can he mean when he says that
I am the wisest of men? So I left him, saying to myself, as I
went away: conceit of Man, although I do not suppose that either of
us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he
is, for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor
think that I know."

There are
many versions of the Apology of Socrates still in print. One inexpensive
and easy to find version is the Penguin classic - The Last Days of
Socrates.

We
encountered the mice that wouldn't exercise in the course of Jay's dissertation
research: Phelan, J.P. 1995. Reproductive Costs and Longevity in the
House Mouse. Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University.

49

Natasha,
the chimp that hates to move, was coaxed across her compound by oranges
thrown just out of her reach by Terry, at Yerkes Regional Primate Research
Center in Atlanta during the summer of 1998.

The
ingenious mouse cage in which the animals must run some pre-determined number
of revolutions on their exercise wheel before they'll get any food was invented
and built by Glenn Perrigo. It's use is described in numerous excellent
papers including: Perrigo, G. and F.H. Bronson. 1983. "Foraging effort,
food intake, fat deposition and puberty in female mice." Biology
of Reproduction 29:455-463; and Perrigo, G. and F.H. Bronson. 1985.
"Behavioral and physiological responses of female house mice to foraging
variation." Physiology & Behavior 34:437-440.

51

People
who paid full price for their theater season tickets compared with those
who were given theirs for half price. The experiement is described in: Arkes,
H. and C. Blumer 1985. "The psychology of sunk costs." Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes 35:124-140.

The
claims of Metabolife for increasing the expenditure of energy without an
offsetting increase in appetite are made at: www.metabolife.com,
while the claims made for ephedrine and caffeine-based products are described
at: http://www.ephedrinehcl.com/.

John Daly
discussed his ongoing battle over trying to stay sober with ESPN Golf
Online news services September 23, 1999 and in a related interview with
Golf World Magazine. Excerpts.

NEW YORK -- John Daly is drinking and gambling again, not sure where
it will lead but offering no regrets for losing an endorsement with
Callaway Golf that had been his primary source of income. "It's
sad, but I think it's great to be free," Daly told Golf World magazine
".. there's no sense in denying it. It's in my blood."

Daly said "Basically, it (trying to stay sober) had taken over
my life, and I was miserable. It's like I've said before, there's no
way I'd never drink again."

Daly's five-year deal with Callaway, signed after he left rehab in
April 1997, included a provision that he not drink or gamble. Chairman
Ely Callaway offered to send Daly to an addictions specialist nearly
two weeks ago. Daly got to the undisclosed clinic and left. "The
people were nice," Daly told Golf World. "But it just wasn't
for me." Callaway said he had no choice but to drop Daly, who stood
to earn about $3 million over the final two years of the contract.

Asked by the magazine why he continued to gamble even though he lost
an estimated $12 million from 1993 to 1996, Daly said, "I love
the action. I just love it."

The
U.S. Department of Justice reported in April 1998 that in nearly 40 percent
of violent crimes, alcohol is a factor, including in three-fourths of reported
cases of spouse violence.

60

Relative
mortality from traffic accidents and smoking: According to the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration there were 41, 471 traffic fatalities
in 1998. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United
Nations, about 500,000 North Americans and 2.5 million people worldwide
die from cigarette smoking every year.

60

A
good review of the literature on the addictive capacity of chemicals, including
a description of the extent of animals' powerful desire to self-administer
cocaine is: Gardner, E.L. and J. David. 1999. "The neurobiology of
chemical addiction." In Elster, J. and O.J. Skog (eds), Getting
Hooked: Rationality and the Addictions. Cambridge University Press.
(See pages 93-136.)

60

Data
on the worldwide consumption of caffeinated beverages are from: Graham,
H.N. 1984. "Tea: the plant and its manufacture: chemistry and consumption
of the beverage" and Gilbert, R.M.1984. Caffeine consumption. Both
in: Spiller, G.A. (ed), The Methylxanthine Beverages and Foods: Chemistry,
Consumption and Health Effects. Liss Publishing.

61

The
data on improved maze-learning among rats after they have consumed caffeine
are from: Battig, K., and H.Wetzl. 1993. "Psychopharmacological profile
of caffeine." In Caffeine, Coffee, and Health, edited by S.
Garrattini. Raven Publishing.

61

The
benefits to competitive cyclists of caffeine consumption are described in:
Burke, E.R. 1992. Cycling health and Physiology. Vitesse Press.

61

Numerous
studies have searched for negative long-term health consequences of caffeine
consumption with no significant findings. For one summary, see Chou, T.
1992. "Wake up and smell the coffee: Caffeine, coffee and medical consequences."
Western Journal of Medicine 157:544-554. Numerous questions remain
to be answered, though, as discussed in Goldstein, A. 1994. Addiction,
from Biology to Drug Policy. W.H. Freeman and Co.

62

The
mechanism by which adenosine may influence sleep and wakefulness is described
in the review article: Porkka-Heiskanen, T. 1999. "Adenosine in sleep
and wakefulness." Annals of Medicine 2:125-9. A less technical
but really excellent description is given in: Braun, S. 1996. Buzz: The
Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine. Penguin Books.

63

James
Olds's demonstration that rats loved stimulation (with electrodes) in the
mesolimbic area of their brain is described in: Olds, J. "'Reward'
from brain stimulation in the rat." Science 122:878. For an
interesting and personal description of this important research, see: http://stills.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/jolds.html.

The
dramatic effect of endorphins on mood are described in: Wildmann, J. A.
Krueger, M. Schmole, J. Niemann, and others. 1986. "Increase of circulating
beta-endorphin-like immunoreactivity correlates with the change in feeling
of pleasantness after running." Life Sciences 38:997-1003.

69

An
accessible description of the physiological effects of nicotine are described:
Krogh, D. 1991. Smoking: The Artificial Passion. W.H. Freeman and
Co. (See page 32.) See also: DiChara, G. and A. Imperato. 1988. "Drugs
abused by humans preferentially increase synaptic dopamine concentrations
in the mesolimbic system of freely moving rats." Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences 85:5274-78.

70

A
lucid account of the neurochemical consequences of alcohol in the brain
is given in: Braun, S. 1996. Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and
Caffeine. Penguin Books. See also: Weight, F.F. 1992. Cellular and molecular
physiology of alcohol actions in the nervous system. International Review
of Neurobiology 33:289-348; and Gianoulakis, C., P. Angelogianni, M.
Meany, J. Thavundayil, and V. Tawar. 1990. "Endorphins in individuals
with high and low risk for development of alcoholism." In: Opioids,
Bulemia, and Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, L. D. Reid (ed.). Springer-Verlag.

It
is difficult to get an accurate count of just how many high school students
take steroids and so estimates can vary a bit. The data we cite are from
the National Institute of Drug Abuse (http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofax/steroids.html).
they reported in 1997 that 175,000 high school girls and 325,000 high school
boys used steroids.

71

Anabolic
steroids can indeed increase an individual's muscle mass. According to The
National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information: "Anabolic
steroids are drugs derived from the male sex hormone, testosterone. They
promote muscle growth and increase lean body mass." See: http://www.health.org/pubs/qdocs/steroid/stereffects.htm

71

In
addition to their desired effects, steroid have numerous dangerous effects
in males, including shrinking of the testicles, reduced sperm count, infertility,
baldness, development of breasts. For a detailed description, see the National
Institutes of Health's summary at: http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofax/steroids.html

72

Data
on caffeine consumption in the U.S. and the amount of caffeine in soda are
from: Nehlig, A. 1999. "Are we dependent upon coffee and caffeine?
A review on animal and human data." Neuroscience and Biobehavioral
Reviews 23:563-576. (See page 564: "Caffeine consumption reaches
210-238 mg/day in the U.S.")

72

The
study in which subjects were given 900mg of caffeine a day for three weeks
is: Evans, S.M. and R.R. Griffiths. 1992. "Caffeine tolerance and choice
in humans." Psychopharmacology 108:51-59.

72

Heroin
tolerance study reported in, Jones, Kenneth Lamar, Louis W. Shainberg and
Curtis O. Byer. 1979. Drugs and Alcohol. 3rd Edition. Harper & Row.
(p. 31). "A group of individuals were given equal doses of heroin every
day for 19 days. The euphoric effects (exaggerated sense of well-being)
they experienced after receiving the heroin were measured each day and graphed.
The effects of the standard dosage decreased and by the 19th day were almost
nonexistent.")

73

Alcohol
withdrawal varies tremendously from person to person and can include many
symptoms from tremors, sweating, and insomnia, to full-blown delirium tremens.
In fewer than 5% of cases, does alcohol withdrawal progress to delirium
tremens. For a detailed discussion , see Madden, J.S. 1984. A Guide to
Alcohol and Drug Dependence. Bristol publishing. (See pages 44-45.)

74

The
chemical details of the fast flushing response are given in: Institute of
Medicine. 1997. "The Neurobiology of Addiction: An Overview."
In: Dispelling the Myths About Addiction : Strategies to Increase Understanding
and Strengthen Research Institute of Medicine (eds.). National Academy
Press. See pages 37-54.

The
breeding of animals that liked the taste of alcohol is described in: Crabbe,
J.C., J.K. Belknap, and K.J. Buck. 1994. "Genetic animal models of
alcohol and drug abuse." Science 264:1715-1723. Their brains
were shown to have decreased serotonin levels in: Murphy, J.M., W.J. McBride,
L. Lumeng, and T.K. Li. 1987. "Contents of monoamines in forebrain
regions of alcohol-preferring and non-preferring lines of rats." Pharmacology,
Biochemistry and Behavior 26:389-392.

74

Are dopamine
receptor levels related to alcoholism? This is still a pretty controversial
question. Examination of DNA samples from the brains of corpses of thirty-five
alcoholics and thirty-five non-alcoholics revealed that a variant of the
gene for a specific type of dopamine receptor (D2) was present in 69%
of the alcoholics but only 20% of the non-alcoholics. These date are from:
Noble, E.P., P.J. Sheridan, A. Montgomery, T. Ritchie, P. Jagadeeswaran,
H. Nogami, A.H. Briggs, and J.B. Cohn. 1990. "Allelic association
of the D2 dopamine receptor gene in alcoholism." Journal of the
American Medical Association 263:2055-60; and also discussed in: Noble,
E.P. and K. Blum. 1991. "The dopamine D2 receptor gene and alcoholism"
(letter to the editor). Journal of the American Medical Association
265:2667.

Their claim
is that this variant, called the A1 allele, results in fewer D2 receptors
in the brain (See Noble, E.P., K. Blum, T. Ritchie, A. Montgomery, and
P.J. Sheridan, P.J. 1991. "Allelic association of the D2 dopamine
receptor gene with receptor binding characteristics in alcoholism."
Archives of General Psychiatry 48:648-654.) In this paper, the
second section of table 3, page 652, clearly shows that the number of
binding sites is significantly correlated with which allele a person carries.

On the front
page of the New York Times, however, a team from the National Institute
on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism announced that it did not find any difference
between alcoholics and non-alcoholics in the frequency of the A1 allele.
Both sides are continuing to explore this issue.

75

Also controversial
is the question of the link between having a gene for dopamine receptors
and smoking addiction. But see: Lerman, C., N.E. Caporaso, J. Audrain,
D. Main, E.D. Bowman, B. Lockshin, N.R. Boyd, and P.G. Shields. 1999.
"Evidence suggesting the role of specific genetic factors in cigarette
smoking." Health Psychology 18:14-20. This was a twin study
showing evidence that the SLC6A3 (dopamine receptor) gene influenced smoking
initiation and nicotine dependence.

Thomas
Richard Jones's attorney described his clients battle with alcohol and pills
in his closing argument: "The devil lurking in this alcohol and in
these pills would not turn loose of him." From: Vick, K. 1997. "Intoxicated
N.C. Driver Handed Life Sentence." Washington Post, 5/7/97,
p. A9.

76

In
male identical twins, the concordance rate for alcoholism is was measured
as 76% versus 61% for fraternal twins. Among females, the numbers were 36%
and 25%, respectively. See: Pickens, R.W., D.S. Svikis, M. McGue, D.T. Lykken,
L.L. Hesten, and P.J. Clayton. 1991. "Heterogeneity in the inheritance
of alcoholism." Archives of General Psychiatry 48:19-28.

77

John
Daly's 3 million dollar drink. Daly walked away from a $3 million contract
that required him to stay sober. See detailed note for page 59 (above) for
source and quote.

77

Thomas Covington
featured in New York Times, September 19, 1999. Excerpts,

CRACK'S LEGACY:
A SPECIAL REPORTA Drug
Ran Its Course, Then Hid With Its Users

"I don't think anything the police did changed my behavior,"
said Thomas Covington, who was arrested 31 times, mostly for crack possession,
and served two prison terms before voluntarily entering drug treatment.
"Sometimes it was a little more challenging to buy. But once that
compulsion is there, it doesn't matter what the penalty or the threat
is."

Covington
is a big, sharp-witted Brooklyn native who has used crack on and off for
15 years. He made it through the explosive violence that came with crack's
introduction. He was homeless, and sick, and twice felt the steel tip
of a handgun pressed to his temple by hot-tempered dealers.

He dodged the police offensives of three mayors.

But starting in the early 90's, Covington said, he noticed a shift in
the attitudes of young drug dealers. "They didn't use crack,"
he said. "And they didn't respect people who did. To me, being a
34- or 35-year-old guy, standing on line and handing my money to a 15-year-old,
that was humiliating."

78

Data
on the ancient use of hallucinogenic compounds by the Maya are from: Stone,
T. and G. Darlington. 2000. Pills, Potions and Poisons: How Drugs Work.
Oxford University Press.

U.S. gambling statistics
are available in many places. The most comprehensive is the 1999 report
of the National Gambling Impact Study Commissionavailable online:
http://www.ngisc.gov/. The Economist
wrote a more readable article on U.S. gambling in June 1998, it's highlights:

"Legalised
gambling is now permitted in 47 states and the District of Columbia,
generating more than $50 billion in gross revenues (dollars wagered
minus payouts). Gambling expenditures as a percentage of personal income
more than doubled between 1974 and 1997, from 0.3% to 0.74%. Americans
now spend more on various wagers than they do on theme parks, video
games, spectator sports and movie tickets combined (see chart). Government
is far more than an observer in all this. Revenue from state lotteries
climbed from $2 billion in 1973 to $34 billion in 1997. The states spent
$400m advertising such games, in some cases targeting poor districts.
Tribal casinos take in another $7 billion."

84

California lottery
rules: http://www.calottery.com/games/superlotto.html
What is SuperLottoTM? SuperLotto is your chance to win millions of dollars!
The jackpot ranges from $4 million to $50 million or more. The jackpot
rolls over and grows whenever there is no winner. All you have to do is
pick six numbers from 1 to 51 and match them to the six numbers drawn
by the Lottery every Wednesday and Saturday.

In the lottery, there
are 51 balls, each with a different number painted on. They go from 1
to 51. Six balls are going to be pulled out of a bin. In order to win
the jackpot, you must choose all six numbers.

85

The
HIV test problem and the results from the Harvard Medical School are reported
in, Casscells, W., A. Schoenberger and T. Grayboys. 1978. "Interpretation
by physicians of clinical laboratory results." New England Journal
of Medicine 299: 999-1000.

Average number of living offspring = 4.91
Average number of wives = 1.63

Non-unokais -- 243 men in this study were not Unokai (had not killed
another man)

Average number of living offspring = 1.59
Average number of wives = 0.63

89

Dopamine receptors
(the "novelty gene") and risky behavior, Benjamin, J., L. Li,
C. Patterson, B.D. Greenberg, et al. 1996. "Population and Familial
Association Between the D4 Dopamine Receptor Gene and Measures of Novelty
Seeking." Nature Genetics 12: 81-4. The last author of this study
is Dean Hamer, who wrote, Hamer, Dean. 1998. Living with our Genes. Doubleday.
In it he discussed the relationship between the novelty gene and sex:

"Straight
[heterosexual] men with the long gene, the high novelty seekers, were
six time more likely to have slept with another man than those [heterosexual
men] with a short gene... Those [gay men] with the long, high novelty-seeking
form of the gene had sex with more than five times as many women as did
those with the shor, low novelty-seeking form." -- p. 179-180.

U.S.
mortality figures (1997) from the Centers for Disease Control, National
Vital Statistics Reports. Volume 47, Number 19, Deaths Final Data for 1997,
available online: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvs47_19.pdf

"over the last
century, accumulations in stocks have always outperformed other financial
assets for the patient investor. Even such calamitous events such as the
Great 1929 Stock Crash did not negate the superiority of stocks as long-term
investments." --p. 5

102

A
paper showing that people, particularly men, who trade actively do worse
than those who trade less frequently, Barber, Brad M. and Terrance Odean.
2000. "Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock
Investment." Quarterly Journal of Economics Forthcoming. Preprint
available for download

An
excellent discussion of the lack of long-term satisfaction achieved through
wealth is contained in the opening chapter of, Frank, Robert. 1999. Luxury
Fever. Why Money Fails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess. The Free Press.

105

An
academic work on the causes of happiness is, Kahneman, Daniel, Ed Diener
and Norbert Schwarz, Eds. 1999. Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic
Psychology. Russell Sage Foundation. In Chapter 18, causes and correlates
of happiness, Michael Argyle discusses the role of money in happiness and
states, "Income has a complex and generally weak effects on happiness.
Cross-sectional studies find a small positive effect but only at the lower
end of the income scale" --p 353

A
recent book on suicide is, Jamison, Redfield. 1999. Night Falls Fast.
Knopf. --Some key data from the book: Suicide attempts land half a million
Americans in hospitals every year. As compiled by the World Health Organization
(WHO), 2 percent of deaths in 1998 were suicides -- more than from war and
far more than from homicide.

"I would be bitterly
disappointed that my erstwhile friend thought no more of me than to finesse
our personal relationship exclusively with the intention of getting at
my locked up possessions, and my depression would hit new lows every time
I discovered this. ... The hardest thing to learn to live with was the
incessant, passioned, and often aggressive demands they would make."
--p 16

"by
then, a species of insect has laid its eggs in the pith and the eggs have
developed into large grubs, some the size of mice! This grub looks like
a housefly maggot, but a very large one. ...An experienced missionary
who tried them said they taste to him like very fat bacon"-- p 62

In
an e-mail to us from Graceland, the Graceland museum informed us that: "Elvis
took a few friends from Memphis to Denver and back for peanut butter and
banana sandwiches from a restaurant there. His 'Lisa Marie' jet airplane
was a Delta airliner at one time and held 96 passengers before he converted
it to his 'flying Graceland'. It is a Convair 880. It took 2200 gal. of
fuel to take off and burned 1,700 gal. per hour flying."

I reminded Clark that
he had said that once he became a real, after-tax billionaire he'd retire.
He now said, without missing a beat: "I just want to make more money
than Larry Ellison. Then I'll stop." This was news. I pointed out
that he'd never before mentioned this ambition. "I just want to have
more money than Larry Ellison," he said again. "I don't know
why. But once I have more money than Larry Ellison I'll be satisfied."

Larry Ellison, the
C.E.O. of Oracle, the biggest software company in the valley, was worth
about $9 billion; Clark was, just then, worth a bit more than $3 billion.
On the other hand, Ellison's wealth was completely tied up in Oracle stock,
which had mostly missed out on the Internet boom. At the rate Clark's
wealth was growing he'd pass Ellison within six months. I pointed this
out and asked the obvious question:

"What happens after
you have more than Larry Ellison? Would you want to have more money than,
say, Bill Gates?... Oh, no," Clark said, waving my question to the side
of the room where the ridiculous ideas gather to commiserate with one
another. "That'll never happen." A few minutes later, after the conversation
had turned to other matters, he came clean. "You know," he said, "just
for one moment, I would kind of like to have the most. Just for one tiny
moment."

"Often women
found the videotape viewing to be intensely emotional, especially when
they heard noises they made. Women frequently commented upon details they
hadn't remembered, their reactivated memory for labor pain, and the 'weird'
experience of watching themselves in labor."

120

An excellent discussion
on the evolution of greed is contained within, Hill, Kim and Magdelena
Hurtado. 1996. Ache Life History: The Ecology and Demography of a Foraging
People. Aline De Gruyter.

"The Ache eat
better than almost any other group of foragers ever studied and they weigh
considerably more than well-known groups such as the !Kung, yet data clearly
indicate that they do not get 'enough food to meet their needs.' More
food is shown to impact positively on fertility of both sexes and may
also increase child survival (though the evidence is weak)." --p 319

"How much should
you write a day? The best way is always to stop when you are going good
and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when
you are writing a novel you will never be stuck." --p 42

"Thus we have
the paradoxical situation: On the job people feel skillful and challenged,
and therefore feel more happy, strong, creative, and satisfied, In their
free time people feel that there is generally not much to do and their
skills are not being used, and therefore they tend to feel more sad, weak,
dull, and dissatisfied. Yet they like to work less and spend more time
in leisure." -- p 159

The
classic study showing that most male college students and no female college
students are willing to have sex when proposed by a member of the opposite
sex (of average attractiveness) is: Clark, R.D. and E. Hatfield. 1989.
"Gender differences in receptivity to sexual offers." Journal
of Psychology & Human Sexuality 2:39-55.

For
a summary of male female physical differences, see Baker, M.A. (ed). 1987.
Sex Differences in Human Performance. John Wiley.

134

Data
on the increasing differences in throwing ability with age are from: Thomas,
J.R. and K.E. French. 1985. "Gender differences across age in motor
performance: A meta-analysis." Psychological Bulletin 98:260-282.

134

Sex
differences in bone size are presented in: Gindhart. P.S. 1973. "Growth
standards for the tibia and radius in children aged one month through eighteen
years." American Journal of Physical Anthropology 39:41-48;
and Tanner, J.M. 1990. Foetus into Man: Physical Growth from Conception
to Maturity. Harvard University Press.

135

An
excellent discussion of the great disparity in average life span for men
and women around the world is: Austad, S.N. 1997. Why We Age. John Wiley
& Sons.

135

The
data showing increased longevity resulting from castration are from: Hamilton,
J.B. and G.E. Mestler. 1969. "Mortality and survival: comparison of
eunuchs with intact men and women in a mentally retarded population."
Journal of Gerontology 24:395-411.

136

Cats
and dogs live longer if they are neutered, too: Bronson, R.T. 1981. "Age
at death of necropsied intact and neutered cats." American Journal
of Veterinary Research 42:1606-1608; Bronson, R.T. 1982. "Variation
in age at death of dogs of different sexes and breeds." American
Journal of Veterinary Research 43:2057-2059.

Many books suggest that seahorses display sex role reversals similar
to that of moorhens; recent data suggest that this may not be true, at
least for some species. Note: seahorses are fish complete with fins and
gills.

The story until recently focused on the high level of male seahorse investment
in offspring. The seahorse mating system has females produce the eggs
then transfer them to a pouch in the male. The male carries the offspring
inside of him in a form of prenancy and eventually gives birth. The link
has some interesting photos of seahorses and contains a review of the
literature.

There is also a nice National Geographic article (with great photos)
on seahorses:
The improbable seahorse. 1994 National Geographic 186 (October) :126

Recent data suggest that male seahorses do not invest more in offspring
than do female seahorses. In this new view, the male investment in offspring
is still considered high, but females invest significant resources in
egg production and females (at least of some species) visit males during
the males "pregnancy".

If male seahorse investment in offspring is lower than female investment
in offspring, then the prediction is that seahorses will display the more
common sex differences in behavior. Specifically, if females invest more,
the females should be more choosy in picking mates than males, and males
will be more competitive. Several papers find that male-female relationships
are, in the author's words, "conventional".

sex-role reversal "had been tacitly and explicitly assumed"
by researchers, she notes. Yet her lab tests in the late 1980s dashed
that expectation.

When she watched various combinations of males and females sharing
an aquarium tank, she found that only the males tail-wrestled. She has
seen males snap their heads toward each other but hesitates to call
this competition. Putting underwater microphones into tanks revealed
that the fish make a noise like fingers snapping.

In competitive behaviors that males and females shared, Vincent rated
the males as more intense. The male rival that triumphed in a contest
for a mate typically turned out to be the heavier one. Contrary to old
expectations, it looked to Vincent as if males were putting more effort
into getting pregnant than females were exerting to impregnate them.

The intense male competition has raised questions about where to fit
seahorses into the spectrum of animal mating systems.

More recent work confirms this conventional view of seahorse sex roles;
female seahorses (species Hippocampus zosterae) have lower potential
reproductive rates than males, and females are more reluctant to mate
than males:

Data
on the energetic cost of an average pregnancy come from the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (http://www.fao.org/)
and are discussed in detail in: Prentice, A.M. and R.G. Whitehead. 1987.
"The energetics of human reproduction." Symposium of the Zoological
Society of London 57:275-304.

The
dramatic differences in mortality rates among male and female macaques are
presented in Jolly, A. 1985. The Evolution of Primate Behavior, 2nd edition.
Macmillan. See, in particular, the mortality rates on page 225 and the accompanying
text: "Then, as females mature to childbearing age, their death rate
falls to near zero. Subadult males, however, change troops, and fight their
way into new hierarchies, or hang about on the periphery as outcasts. Their
mortality peaks sharply."

The
study of whether counseling influences whether boys with "girlish"
habits eventually identify themselves as gay is described in: Greene, R.
1987. "The 'Sissy Boy Syndrome' and the Development of Homosexuality."
Yale University Press.

146

An
excellent source of information about homosexuality among the Sambia and
an excellent ethnography in general is: Herdt, G. 1987. The Sambia. Ritual
and Gender in New Guinea. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Page vi (foreword):
"This study shows that it is entirely possible--in fact among the Sambia
it is required--to move from exclusive homosexual behavior to exclusive
heterosexuality. Among the Sambia, adult males are husbands, fathers, and
warriors who must always be prepared for war. They do not as adults engage
in homosexual practices and in fact look down upon the occasional adult
male who does so, at least one who does so habitually. All of these very
masculine, heterosexual males, however, have spent years engaging in homosexual
acts required of them as preadult initiates, during which time they avoided
women and learned to be antagonist toward them."

146

For
information on the widespread occurrence of cultures in which a period of
adolescent homosexuality is important, see also: Herdt, G. 1997. Same
Sex, Different Cultures. Westview Publishers. For example: page 82:
"The practice of boy-insemination rituals is very ancient and widespread
throughout this region of the world. Approximately sixty distinct precolonial
cultures practiced this form of same-gender relationship in the coastal
and southwestern areas of New Guinea, some of the off-lying islands of New
Hebrides, and a few of the tradition tribal groups of Australian Aborigines.
this number represents approximately 10-20 percent of al the societies that
have been systematically studied in this area."

146

A
fascinating book on bonobo behavior is: De Waal, F. and F. Lanting. 1998.
Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape. University of California Press. As a bonus,
the book is filled with spectacular photographs of primates.

The
dramatic sex-changing ways of the blue-headed wrasse are described in: Warner,
R.R. 1975. "The adaptive significance of sequential hermaphroditism
in animals." American Naturalist 109:61-82.

148

The
examples of "'roid rage" are from a paper presented by: Pope,
H.G. and D.L. Katz. at the 1992 Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric
Association, Washington, DC. See also: Pope, H.G. and D.L. Katz. 1994. "Psychiatric
and medical effects of anabolic-androgenic steroid use: A controlled study
of 160 athletes." Archives of General Psychiatry 51:375-38

Chagnon,
N. (1992). Yanomamo, 4th edition. New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
See for example, pages 187 - 188: "Needless to say, the tops of most
men's heads are covered with deep ugly scars of which their bearers are
immensely proud. Some men, in fact, keep their heads cleanly shaved on
top to display these scars, rubbing red pigment on their bare scalps to
define them more precisely." See also page 188, figure 6.2: "Older
men who have been in many club fights have enormous scars of which they
are very proud."

A
classic introduction to animal behavior, including some photos of animals
caught in flagrante while taking part in the mating game (for example,
see plate 9.1c.) can be found in Krebs, J.R. and N. B. Davies. 1993. Introduction
to Behavioral Ecology, 3rd edition.

154

More
specific than Krebs and Davies but an excellent general textbook on primate
behavior is: Jolly, A. 1985. The evolution of primate behavior, 2nd edition.
See for example, a demonstration of just how precarious some monkey sex
can be in figure 13.1, panes B and C, and figure 13.5, pane B.

155

Humans
consider clear skin a sign of good health and, moreover, the greater the
prevalence in a society, the more the people in that society value physical
appearance in prospective mates. Gangestad, S.W. and D.M. Buss. 1993. "Pathogen
prevalence and human mate preferences." Ethology and Sociobiology
14: 89-96.

For
a detailed description of animal symmetry, its measurement and some examples
of its significance, see: Palmer, A.R., and Strobeck, C. 1986. "Fluctuating
asymmetry: measurement, analysis, patterns." Annual Review of Ecology
and Systematics. 17:391-421.

156

Finally,
a way to earn some money at the race track from our knowledge of symmetry.
Just bring your digital calipers to the horse races: Manning, J.T. and L.
Ockenden. 1994. "Fluctuating asymmetry in race horses." Nature.
370:185-186.

156

Humans
aren't the only species that can profit by detecting symmetry in others:
A.P. Moller. 1995. "Bumblebee preference for symmetrical flowers."
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 92: 2288-2292.

156

An
ingenious study illustrating the power of our subconscious attraction to
symmetry is: Gangestad, S.W. and R. Thornhill. 1998. "Menstrual cycle
variation in women's preferences for the scent of symmetrical men."
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B. 265:927-933.

157

Evidence
that men with symmetrical bodies have sex earlier in life and earlier in
the course of a relationship is presented in: Thornhill, R. and Gangestad,
S.W. 1994. "Human fluctuating asymmetry and sexual behavior."
Physiological Science. 5:297-302.

A
nice demonstration that there is cross-cultural agreement on who is beautiful
is: Cunningham, M.R., A.R. Roberts, C-H Wu, A.P. Barbee, and P.B. Druen.
1995. "'Their ideas of beauty are, on the whole, the same as ours':
Consistency and variability in the cross-cultural perception of female attractiveness."
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68:261-279.

158

The
study showing that the Ache and Hiwi hunter-gatherers have similar criteria
of beauty as other societies is: Jones, D. and K. Hill. 1993. "Criteria
of facial attractiveness in five populations." Human Nature
4:271-295.

159

For
evidence that babies stare longer at pictures of attractive people than
of unattractive people, see: Langlois, J.H., L.A. Roggman, and L.A. Reiser-Danner.
1990. "Infants' differential social responses to attractive and unattractive
faces." Developmental Psychology 26:153-159.

161

An
excellent summary of available data on variation within and between populations
as well as the significance of those data is: Molnar, S. 1988. Human
Variation: Races, Types, and Ethnic Groups. Prentice Hall. In particular,
see page 119 for a table comparing HLA haplotypes among 13 different populations.

161

A
wealth of data on just how many sperm and eggs men and women are producing
is contained within: Bellis, M.A. and R.R. Baker. 1995. Human Sperm Competition:
Copulation, Masturbation and Infidelity. Chapman and Hall.

162

The
vital stats on Miss Americas are summarized in: A. Mazur. 1986. "U.S.
trends in feminine beauty and over adaptation." Journal of Sex Research
22:281-303.

Facial
features that contribute most to making a face beautiful are described in:
Perrett, D.I., K.A. May, and S. Yoshikawa. 1994. "Facial shape and
judgements of female attractiveness." Nature 368:239-242.

164

"Sex
bombs" and their irresistibility are described in: Dawkins, R. 1995.
River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life. Basic Books. See page
63.

165

Personal
ads reveal interesting things about what some people are looking for in
mates: Deaux, K. and R. Hanna. 1984. "Courtship in the personals column:
The influence of gender and sexual orientation." Sex Roles 11:363-375;
and Hatala, M.N. and J. Prehodka, 1996. "Content analysis of gay male
and lesbian personal advertisements." Psychological Reports
78:371-374.

165

The
effect of a woman's pupil size on a man's willingness to volunteer to be
her partner in a psychology experiment is described in: Stass, W. and F.N.
Willis, Jr. 1967. "Eye contact, pupil dilation, and personal preference."
Psychonomic Science 7:375-376.

166

Data
showing that attractive women have a hard time making and keeping friends
are found in: Krebs, D. and A.A. Adinolfi. 1975. "Physical attractiveness,
social relations and personality style." Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology 31:245-253.

167

The
Burger King uniform vs. Rolex watch study and discussion of its significance
are described in: Townsend, J.M. and G.D. Levy. 1990. "Effect of potential
partners' physical attractiveness and socioeconomic status on sexuality
and partner selection." Archives of Sexual Behavior 19:149-164;
and Townsend, J.M. and G.D. Levy. 1990. "Effect of potential partners"
costume and physical attractiveness on sexuality and partner selection."
Journal of Psychology 124:371-389. See also http://www.burgerking.com/

168

Very
interesting data on the characteristics preferred by males and by females
(and, in particular, that women and men differed consistently across all
37 cultures in that women prefer older partners on average, and men prefer
younger partners on average) are given in a table by D. Buss on page 420
in: Crawford, C. and D.L. Krebs. 1997. Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology
: Ideas, Issues, and Applications. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

169

The
data on height and salary come from: Frieze, I.H., J.E. Olson, and D.C.
Good. 1990. "Perceived and actual discrimination in the salaries of
male and female managers," Journal of Applied Social Psychology
20:46-47.

169

The
fact that we generally vote for tall men for president is discussed in:
McGinnis, J. 1976. The Selling of the President. Andre Deutsch.

169

Most
of us do lie about our height and the proof can be found in: Dillon, D.J.
1962. "Measurement of perceived body size." Perceptual and
Motor Skills 14:191-196.

Numerous
studies making estimates of cuckoldry rates among humans are summarized
in: Baker, R. and M. A. Bellis 1995. Human Sperm Competition. Copulation,
Masturbation, and Infidelity. Chapman and Hall. Perhaps the best study
is: Sasse, G., H. Muller, R. Chakraborty, and J. Ott. 1994. "Estimating
the frequency of nonpaternity in Switzerland." Human Heredity
44:337-343. This is the very careful and conservative study, in which they
tested 1,607 children and found 11 cases of misidentified paternity.

174

The British
study of cuckoldry was reported widely in the media (see, for instance,
the Sunday London Times excerpt below.) It should be noted that these
data come from individuals that came to a laboratory that does paternity
testing and, consequently, must be assumed to have more reason than average
to suspect cuckoldry.

The Times (Britain)
23 January 2000

At least one in 10 children was not sired by the man who believes
he is their father, according to scientists in paternity testing laboratories.

Some laboratories have reported the level of "unexpected"
paternity to be as high as one in seven when they perform DNA genetic
tests on blood samples from supposed parent and offspring. There are
now seven government-approved laboratories doing paternity testing.
Cellmark Diagnostics in Abingdon is the largest and receives more
than 10,000 requests a year. One in five of them is "private"
and has not been ordered as a result of a court or Child Support Agency
dispute.

David Hartshorne, spokesman for Cellmark, said that in about one
case in seven, the presumed father turns out to be the wrong man.
"It is surprising how often the mother is wrong about the person
she thinks is the father," he said. Marriage breakdown and more
births outside marriage have increased disputes about paternity and
the desire for testing, he added.

In addition to DNA evidence, other studies of mass blood samples
suggest that increasing numbers of women are unsure if their husbands
are the fathers of their children. This phenomenon of misattributed
fatherhood has been investigated in a newly published study by social
scientists at the London School of Economics (LSE). Oliver Curry,
the principal researcher, said long working hours and commuting by
fathers could contribute to uncertainty about whether children have
been fathered by the man who is bringing them up.

"It can have major consequences for the way men treat their
supposed children and the amount of time, money and emotion they invest
in them," Curry said. "It can range through the entire spectrum
from serious abuse to deciding not to pay for their education, or
not buying them the latest expensive trainers."

The team from the LSE is calling for investigations to be set up
by the government's new National Family and Parenting Institute. They
believe that mistrust over paternity may be an overlooked factor in
family breakdown. Women are driven by primitive urges to seek the
optimum genes for their children, which can lead to them sleeping
with a "high social-status Casanova" as well as their regular
partner during the fertile period around ovulation, researchers claim.

David Buss, a psychologist from the University of Texas who is about
to publish a new study on the subject, said: "A proportion of
these misattributed fathers will believe that the child is genuinely
theirs, and often the mother tries to foster that belief." He
also estimates that the tendency for women to shop around for the
best genes leads to them making mistakes about who has fathered their
child.

Soraya Khashoggi, 57, former wife of arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi,
has revealed how DNA tests established her 18-year-old daughter, Petrina,
to be the child of Jonathan Aitken, the disgraced former Conservative
minister. Khashoggi said her ex-husband had completely accepted Petrina:
"He gave her his name without ever asking who her true father
was," she said.

Paula Yates, the television personality, discovered at 37 that her
real father was Hughie Green, the Opportunity Knocks star.

174

Dan
Quayle's comments were in a speech on the causes of the LA riots. He said:
"Bearing babies irresponsibly is wrong. Failing to support children
one has fathered is wrong. It doesn't help matters when prime time TV has
Murphy Browna character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent,
highly paid, professional womanmocking the importance of fathers by
bearing a child alone and then calling it just another 'lifestyle choice.'"

Testicle measurements are reported in: Smith, R.L. 1984. Sperm Competition
and the Evolution of Mating Systems. Academic Press (see pages 601-659);
and Short, R.V. 1979. "Sexual selection and its component parts, somatic
and genital selection, as illustrated by man and great apes." Advances
in the Study of Behavior 9:131-158.

176

Numerous
researchers have recounted the prodigious displays of chimp sexual activity.
Jane Goodall, notes, for example: "Tutin, analyzing the rate at which
females copulated during the day, found that there was an average of between
five and six copulation per female per hour in the early morning, after
which the rate dropped gradually to about two per hour in the midmorning,
rose very slightly during the afternoon, and tapered off to one per hour
in the evening." This and additional accounts are presented in the
classic: Goodall, J. 1986. The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior.
Harvard University Press.

176

In
their guide to testicular cancer, the National Cancer Institute reports
that: Many men worry that losing one testicle will affect their ability
to have sexual intercourse or make then sterile. But a man with one healthy
testicle can still have a normal erection and produce sperm. Therefore,
an operation to remove just one testicle does not make a patient impotent
and seldom interferes with fertility. For more information, see: http://rex.nci.nih.gov/WTNK_PUBS/testicular/testicular.txt.

177

Data
on the relative proportion of "seek-and-destroy" sperm, blockers
and "egg-getter" sperm as a function of time that a couple have
spent apart are from: Bellis, M.A. and R.R. Baker. 1995. Human Sperm
Competition: Copulation, Masturbation and Infidelity. Chapman and Hall.
They also report here that males respond to increased risk that the female
has had sex with another male (with the risk assessed as a function of the
percent time they've spent together since their last copulation) by increasing
the number of sperm inseminated. When couples are together for 100% of this
time, there are an average of 389 million sperm per ejaculate. When they
are together for only 5% of the time, the number of sperm per ejaculate
nearly doubles, to 712 million.

Divorce
rates are lower among couples with more children. The raw data are from:
United Nations Statistical Office, Demographic Yearbook. United Nations.
They found that 39% of divorces occur when there are no children, 26% when
there is a single child, 19% when there are two, and less than 3% when there
are four or more.

178

There
is a huge literature cataloging and dissecting the reasons why couples break
up. An excellent and accessible general book that reviews the seminal studies
is: Fisher, H.E. 1992. Anatomy of Love. Norton. An interesting original
account of one society is: Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. 1922. The Andaman Islanders.
Cambridge University Press.

The
160 culture study of why couples break up (describing 43 different causes
of divorce and highlighting infidelity and infertility at the top of the
list) is described in: Betzig, L. 1989. "Causes of conjugal dissolution:
A cross-cultural study." Current Anthropology 30:654-676.

179

Data
on when divorce is most likely to occuri.e. the "four-year itch"are
from: Fisher, H.E. 1989. "Evolution of human serial pairbonding."
American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 78:331-354; and Fisher,
H.E. 1991. "Monogamy, adultery and divorce in cross-species perspective."
In Man and Beast Revisited, (M.H. Robinson and L. Tiger, eds.). Smithsonian
Institution Press. (But see also her Anatomy of Love cited above.)

Our
desire to marry has not decreased as divorce rates have increased. Cherlin
(from the reference above) documented that more than 90% of Americans marry.
Moreover, data collected by the United Nations on 97 societies, indicates
that between the years 1972 and 1981, an average of 93.1% of women and 91.8%
of men married by age 49. This is reported in: Fisher, H.E. 1989. "Evolution
of human serial pairbonding." American Journal of Physical Anthropology
78:331-354.

180

The
relationship between womenâs earning power and divorce rates is discussed
in Cherlin, A.J. 1981. Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage. Harvard University
Press; and Fisher, H.E. 1992. Anatomy of Love. The specific case
of the Navajo is described in: Van den Berghe, P.L. 1979. Human Family
Systems: An Evolutionary View. Greenwood Press.

180

Fifty-six
percent of men who have extramarital sex describe their marriages as "happy"
while only 33% of women do. See: Glass, D.P. and T.L. Wright. 1985. "Sex
differences in type of extramarital involvement and marital dissatisfaction."
Sex Roles 12:1101-1120.

180

Data
on the increase of extramarital sex with increasing age among men are from:
Kinsey, A.C., W.B. Pomeroy, and C.E. Martin. Sexual Behavior in the Human
Male. 1948; and Kinsey, A.C., W.B. Pomeroy, and C.E. Martin. Sexual Behavior
in the Human Female. 1953; See also Wiederman, M.W. 1997. "Extramarital
sex: Prevalence and correlates in a national survey." The Journal
of Sex Research 34:167-174.

181

For
more of the details on Hal and Miriamâs hangingly mating ritual, see: Thornhill,
R. 1976. "Sexual selection and nuptial feeding behavior in Bittacus
apicalis (Insecta: Mecoptera)." American Naturalist 110:529-548.

182

The
hummingbird exchange of access to food for mating opportunities is described
in: Wolf, L.L. 1975. "Prostitution behavior in a tropical hummingbird."
Condor 77:140-144.

Data
demonstrating that female matings outside of their pair bond are predominantly
with males more attractive than their mate are from: Houtman, A.M. 1992.
"Female zebra finches choose attractive partners for extra-pair copulations."
Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Sciences, London B 249:3-6.

185

At
what time of the month are women having affairs? A study of 3679 women in
Britain found that copulations outside of marriage occurred more frequently
at the point in their ovulatory cycle when they are most fertile. The data
are reported in: Baker, R. and M. A. Bellis 1995. Human Sperm Competition.
Copulation, Masturbation, and Infidelity. Chapman and Hall. (See page
197).

185

For
data and discussion of the extent to which marital satisfaction is low among
women having affairs, se: Greiling, H. and D.M. Buss. 2000. "Women's
sexual strategies: the hidden dimension of EPM." Personality and
Individual Differences 28:929-963; See also Glass, S.P. and T.L. Wright.
1992. "Justifications for extramarital relationships: the association
between attitudes, behaviors and gender." Journal of Sex Research
29:361-387, where they found that 77% of women were looking for love and
emotional intimacy in an affair.

185

Paternal
resemblance was alleged far more often than maternal resemblance in a videotape
study of 111 individuals by: Daly, M. and M. Wilson. 1982. "Whom are
newborn babies said to resemble?" Ethology and Sociobiology
3:69-78.

186

Infanticide
by males towards the babies of other males is reported in: Cassini, M.H.
1998. "Inter-specific infanticide in South American otariids."
Behavior 135:1005-1012; and Borries, C., K. Launhardt, C. Epplen,
J.T. Epplen, and P. Winkler. 1999. "Males as infant protectors in Hanuman
langurs (Presbytis entellus) living in multimale groups - defence pattern,
paternity and sexual behaviour" Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
46:350-356. In this latter study, of 22 attacks on infant langurs by males,
only the genetic father (or a male who was present when infant was conceived)
would protect infants.

186

The
Nicole and Michelle lemming infanticide story is described in Mallory, F.F.
and R. Brooks. 1978. "Infanticide and other reproductive strategies
in the collared lemming, Dicrostoyx groenlandicus." Nature
273:144-146.

187

Troop
dynamics among the langur monkeys of India and the female strategy of confusing
paternity are described in the classic book: Hrdy, S.B. 1981. The Woman
that Never Evolved. See also Hrdy, S.B. 1999. Mother Nature : A History
of Mothers, Infants, and Natural Selection. Pantheon Books.

188

The
"partible paternity" insurance policy among the Ache is described
in: Hill, K. and M. Hurtado 1996. Ache Life History: The Ecology and
Demography of a Foraging People. Aline De Gruyter. (See page 444.)

Mate
guarding methods and some examples are described in: Krebs, J.R. and N.B.
Davies. 1993. An Introduction to Behavioral Ecology, 3rd edition.
Blackwell Scientific Publications. See page 184 for a good description of
post-copulatory guarding in damselflies.

191

For
an example of male mate guarding that occurs only during the female fertile
period, see: Saino, N., C.R. Primmer, H. Ellegren, and A.P. Moller. 1999.
"Breeding synchrony and paternity in the barn swallow." Behavioral
Ecology and Sociobiology 45:211-218.

192

The
cement-gland wielding parasites of the Phylum Acanthocephala are described
at; http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/taxa/acanth.htm.
An account of their homosexual use of this gland is given in: Abele, L.
and S. Gilchrist. 1977. "Homosexual rape and sexual selection in acanthocephalan
worms." Science 197:81-83.

"A person's behavior
is very different toward joking kin compared with avoidance kin. With
a joking relative one acts in a relaxed fashion and speaks on familiar
terms... The most heavily weighted avoidance relations occur between a
man and his mother-in-law and between a woman and her father-in-law. Here
even direct speech is not to occur. (In practice it frequently does, however.)"
--p 70.

"Men marry women
they call suaböya. Their kinship system literally defines
who is and who is not marriageable, and there are no terms for
what we would call 'in-laws'. In a word, everyone in Yanomamo society
is called by some kinship term that can be translated into what we would
call blood kin." p 139.

201

A
chatty description of the Australian Social Spider's mothering habits can
be found online: Liquid
moms

Crime
within the family. U.S statistics on violence within the family from the
F.B.I. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/nibrs/famvio21.pdf
It says, "of the 214,464 victims of violent offenses, 57,985 or 27
percent, were reported to have been related to one or more of the offenders."

205

The
role of genes in violence is discussed in, Daly, Martin and Margo Wilson.
1988. Homicide. Aline de Gruyter.

206

Spousal
Murder rates from the U.S. Department of Justice. November 1994, NCJ 149259,
it says, In 1977, 54% of the murder victims who were killed by intimates
were female. By 1992, the ratio of female to male victims had changed, with
70% of the victims being female. The number of male victims fell from 1,185
in 1977 to 657 in 1992 and the number of female victims increased from 1,396
to 1,510 during the same period.

The
data on stepparents come from, Daly, Martin and Margo Wilson. 1998. The
Truth about Cinderella. A Darwinian View of Parental Love. They write,
"the estimated rates of step-parent-plus genetic parent households
had grown to approximately one hundred times greater than in two-genetic-parent
households." --p 28.

"hPL
is proposed to act on maternal prolactin receptors to increase maternal
resistance to [her own] insulin. If unopposed, the effect of hPL would
be to maintain higher blood glucose levels for longer periods after meals.
This action, however, is countered by increased maternal production of
insulin. Gestational diabetes develops if the mother is unable to mount
an adequate response to fetal manipulation." --p 495

"In
the chimpanzee, territoriality functions not only to repel intruders
from the home range, but sometimes to injure or eliminate them; not
only to defend the existing home range and its resources, but to enlarge
it opportunistically at the expense of weaker neighbors; not only to
protect the female resources of a community, but to actively and aggressively
recruit new sexual partners from neighboring social groups." --
p 528

"Defense of territory
is widespread among many species, but the Kasekela chimpanzees were doing
more than defending. They didn't wait to be alerted to the presence of
intruders. Sometimes they moved right through border zones and penetrated
half a mile or more into neighboring land. They did no feeding on these
ventures. And three times I saw them attack lone neighbors. So they seemed
to be looking for encounters in the neighboring range. These expeditions
were different from mere defense, or even border patrols. These were raids."
--p 13

"The Moriori
were a small, isolated population of hunter gatherers, equipped with only
the simplest technology and weapons, entirely inexperienced at war and
lacking strong leadership and organization. The Maori invaders (from New
Zealand's North Island) came from a dense population of farmers chronically
engaged in ferocious wars, equipped with more-advanced technology and
weapons, and operating under strong leadership." --p 54

215

Experiments
on co-operation and group identity are described in, Bornstein, Gary and
Meyrav Ben-Yossef. 1994. "Cooperation in intergroup and single-group
social dilemmas." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,
1 30: 52-67, and McCallum, Debra M. and et al. 1985. "Competition and
cooperation between groups and between individuals." Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 21(4): 301-320.

Philadephia
victory celebration, "From the moment the parade kicked off at 18th
and Kennedy Boulevard to the moment it ended 90 minutes later at John F.
Kennedy Stadium, there was non-stop cheering, chanting and screaming from
a crowd estimated at more than a half-million." Philadelphia Daily
News, October 23, 1980.

218

A good review article
on the effects of race on reaction time is, Banaji, Mahzarin R. and Nilanjana
Dasgupta. 1998. The Consciousness of Social Beliefs: A Program of Research
on Stereotyping and Prejudice. in Vincent Y. Yzerbyt, Guy Lories and
Benoit Dardenne, eds., Metacognition:
Cognitive and social dimensions:
Sage Publications 157-170.

Professor Mahzarin
R. Banaji is a leader in this research; you
can visit her webpage and you can also take test yourself online for
unconsicious biases using the tasks ("IAT" - Implicit Association
Test) used in this research. Take
an IAT online

The
seminal ultimatum game study is, Guth, Werner, Rolf Schmittberger and Bernd
Schwarze. 1982. "An Experimental Analysis of Ultimatum Bargaining."
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, December 3(4): 367-388.
The origin finding of "fairness" has been verified even when the
pot is large. See, for example, Cameron, Lisa. 1999. "Raising the stakes
in the ultimatum game: experimental evidence from Indonesia." Economic
Inquiry 37(1): 47-59.

229

For
a discussion of when mates desert see, Lazarus, J. 1990. "The logic
of mate desertion." Animal Behavior 39: 672-684. Eens, M. and
R. Pinxten. 1995. "Mate desertion by primary female European starlings
at the end of the nestling stage." Journal of Avian Biology
26: 267-271.

230

A
good account of chimpanzee's continual testing of strength is, Goodall,
Jane. 1986. The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior. Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press. --p 324

The
Kula Ring is described in, Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1922. Argonauts of
the Western Pacific. E.P. Dutton. See Chapter III, "The Essential
of the Kula."

233

The
idea of gossip as an evolutionary adaptation, and its exploitation by soap
operas and tabloids is advanced in, Barkow, Jerome H. 1992. Beneath New
Culture is Old Psychology: Gossip and Social Stratification. in Jerome
H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, eds., The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary
Psychology and the Generation of Culture. New York: Oxford University
Press 627-638.

235

The
universally selfish and obligatory nature of gifts is noted in, Mauss, Marcel.
1954. The Gift; forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies.
Free Press.

The
photocopier study is reported in, Langer, Ellen J. 1978. Rethinking the
Role of Thought in Social Interaction. in John Harvey, William J. Ickes
and Robert Kidd, eds., New Directions in Attribution Research. New
York: L. Erlbaum Associates 48-9.

238

The
naughty and nice seminarians study is Darley, J.M. and C.D. Batson. 1973.
"From Jerusalem to Jericho: A study of situational and dispositional
variables in helping behavior." Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 27(1): 100-108.

An important
finding of theirs is that the preference for larger eggs remains the
same when other features like shape and colour are changed. This means
that each feature (colour and speckling) adds a specific contribution
that is independent of the contribution of the other features. In
other words the features are additive in their effect on the gulls'
behaviour.

244

The story
of one group of the !Kung San and their boreholes is told in, Tanaka,
J. 1987. The Recent Changes in the Life and Society of the Central
Kalahari San. in African Study Monographs 37-51.

In 1962,
under George Silberbauer, 5 test holes were bored in a 50 x 50km area.
They were improved in 1979, leading to a stable water supply.

"…stable
water supply from boreholes was the greatest factor to attract people.
… Thus a great number of people came around !Koi!kom borehole. As a
result, an extraordinarily large settlement suddenly sprang up. … The
number increased to 520 at the end of 1982 owing to the severe drought
and free food distribution by the government. … Wild plants which they
relied [on for] 80% of their food disappeared rapidly, and the people
of Kade were forced to depend on aid food. … Shortage of wood around
!Koi!kom has become serious year after year, and now they are forced
to go out as far as 3km to collect wood. Besides firewood, they need
materials to build fences to protect their gardens from animals and
to build their own huts. Thus the trees near the settlement have been
completely cut down, and desertification is rapid in progress. … If
the sedentary life continues, a large-scale destruction of nature will
be inevitable."

"Greed,
for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed
clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary
spirit. Greed in all its forms, greed for life, greed for money, for
love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed, you
mark my words, will not only save Teldar paper, but that other malfunctioning
corporation called the U.S.A."

247

Walter Mischel
conducted dozens of experiments on deferral of gratification including
the marshmallow studies. A nice review of this work is, Mischel, Walter,
Yuichi Shoda and Monica Rodriguez. 1989. "Delay of Gratification
in Children." Science, 244: 933-938. Professor
Mischel's web site

Mischel et
al. report: "After children understand the contingency, they are left
on their own during the delay period while their behavior is observed
unobtrusively, and the duration of their delay is recorded until they
terminate or the experimenter returns (typically after 15 minutes).

They also
state that: "A recent follow-up study of a sample of these children
found that those who had waited longer in this situation at 4 years of
age were described more than 10 years later by their parents as adolescents
who were more academically and socially comptent than their peers and
more able to copy with frustration and resist tempation."

And finally:
"seconds of delay time in preschool also were significantly related to
their Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores when they applied to college."

247

Additional
experimental investigations of delayed gratification in children are reported
in Loewenstein, G. and J. Elster, Eds. (1992). Choice over Time. New York,
Russell Sage Foundation.

In this study,
children (mean age 4 years and 4 months) were tested with marshmallows,
pretzel sticks, or poker chips, depending on which the child picked. They
were told that the researcher would leave the room, and when he returned
the kid could have two marshmallows (or pretzels, or poker chips). The
child could ring a bell at any time to bring the researcher back, but
if s/he rang the bell s/he could only have one marshmallow. Their mean
waiting time was 512.8 sec, with a standard deviation of 368.7 seconds
(with no difference according to sex).

The researchers
also varied whether the reward was exposed, and whether a tactic of self-distraction
was suggested. They would say, for instance: "why don't you think
about something fun we could do afterwards while you wait." The unsuggested
condition was described as "spontaneous ideation" while a suggested distraction
was "suggested ideation" Altogether, they had four possible experimental
conditions:

Exposed/Spontaneous

Exposed/Suggested

Unexposed/Spontaneous

Unexposed/Suggested

Of these:
only the Exposed/Spontaneous differences in delay time in preschoolers
was predictive of later traits. The follow up was done around age 18,
via parental questionnaires and SAT scores. Questions they asked included:
How likely is your child to be sidetracked by minor setbacks? When motivated,
how capable is your child of exhibiting self-control in tempting situations?
Is planful, thinks ahead? 12 out of 14 were significantly correlated with
delay times in these children as preschoolers, but again only under Exp/Spont
conditions. SAT Verbal and SAT Math were both correlated as well (correlation
= 0.42, p

The researchers
hypothesized that the exposed/spontaneous ideation conditions are more
predictive because intelligent, patient, motivated kids are more likely
to develop their own strategies for self-distraction while they wait.
When this strategy is suggested/facilitated, or when the rewards are unexposed
(presumably providing less of a temptation) the difference in abilities
of kids to self-distract is obscured.

Study 1 used
food: One hand has three raisins, while the other has 5. The researchers
tried to train the chimpanzees to chose the smaller of the two quantities
in order to receive the largest. After hundreds and hundreds of trials,
there was no improvement!

Study 2,
on the other hand, used "symbols." Chimpazneess were taught that one pebble
represented one raisin. Then chimpanzees were then shown different amounts
in different hands with the same rule: pick the smallest number of rocks
in order to receive the larger number. Under these condistions the chimpanzees
can learn (and relatively quickly).

In Study
3, the researchers used arabic numbers since several of these same chimpanzees
know the arabic numerals through about 9. Again, different amounts of
food were represented by numbers, with the champanzees having to pick
smaller number in order to get the larger payoffg. Again the chimps quickly
learn to perform well.

"Generally,
he who occupies the field of battle first and awaits his enemy is at ease,
and he who comes later to the scene and rushes into the fight is weary.
And, therefore, those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle
and are not brought there by him. One able to make the enemy come of his
own accord does so by offering him some advantage. And one able to stop
him from coming does so by preventing him. Thus, when the enemy is at
ease, be able to tire him, when well fed, to starve him, when at rest
to make him move." --p. 96, chapter 6.